Let’s Roll on Out, Steve

The news that actor Steve Forrest died on May 18 at age 87 put me immediately in mind of his two most prominent leading roles--in the 1966-1967 British crime drama The Baron (on which he played an antiques dealer who is also a sometime undercover agent “working in an informal capacity for the head of the fictional British Diplomatic Intelligence ...”); and in the 1975-1976 ABC police drama S.W.A.T. (which cast him as Lieutenant “Hondo” Harrelson, the head of a Southern California Special Weapons and Tactics team).





However, I also remember Forrest--the younger brother of actor Dana Andrews--for a variety of his guest-star roles over the years. His résumé was extensive, including appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Arrest and Trial, Burke’s Law, The Name of the Game, The Streets of San Francisco, Ironside, McMillan & Wife, Cannon, Columbo, and … well, this list could go on and on. Interestingly, one of my strongest memories of Forrest is of his playing a condemned killer who was scheduled to die in an early electric chair, in “Hangman’s Wages,” an episode of Hec Ramsey. He did a splendid job defining his character’s long and mutually respectful relationship with small-town Oklahoma lawman Ramsey, played by Richard Boone.

Forrest will definitely be missed.

READ MORE: “R.I.P., Steve Forrest,” by Matthew Bradford/Tanner (Double O Section).